For churches, mission teams, benevolence committees, scholarship funds and sponsor-a-child programs
Gifts earmarked for a specific person: mission trips, benevolence and scholarships — when you can send a tax receipt and when you must not
A check that says for Sarah's mission trip or for the Johnson family is the most common receipt mistake small nonprofits make, and it cuts both ways: issue a receipt for a gift that was really a personal gift to Sarah and the donor's deduction fails on audit; refuse every designation and you lose the donors who want to help someone they know. The IRS test is control: a gift is deductible only if your organization has full control of the money and discretion over its use (Rev. Rul. 62-113; Pub 526). Below are the four letters that follow from that rule — the mission-trip acknowledgment that records a preference without being bound by it, the honest no-receipt letter for a gift you passed through, the benevolence-fund acknowledgment with the form wording that keeps gifts deductible, and the scholarship-fund letter that shows the committee, not the donor, picks the student.
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Receipt or no receipt? The control test applied
| The gift | Deductible? | What to send |
|---|---|---|
| Gift to the mission team fund, no name attached | Yes | Standard acknowledgment (template 1 without the preference paragraph) |
| "For Sarah's trip" — but gifts are pooled, the committee controls the fund and your policy says preferences are not binding | Generally yes (Rev. Rul. 62-113) | Template 1 with the preference paragraph, which puts your control on the record |
| "For Sarah's trip" — each participant has an account and must raise their own costs | No: the church is a conduit | Template 2 (no receipt) and fix the policy |
| Parents paying their own child's trip costs | No (Davis v. United States) | Payment confirmation only, not a contribution receipt |
| Participant paying their own trip costs; trip is genuine service | Possibly, as the volunteer's own expenses (Pub 526) | Volunteer expense letter: describe the services and dates, no dollar value |
| Gift to the benevolence fund, committee chooses recipients | Yes | Template 3 |
| "For the Johnson family's medical bills" | No | Template 2; invite an undesignated gift next time |
| Gift to a named scholarship fund with committee selection and objective criteria | Yes | Template 4 |
| Paying a named student's tuition through the school or club | No (tuition cases) | Template 2 |
| Sponsor-a-child where the organization selects children and pools funds | Generally yes | Standard acknowledgment describing a gift to the sponsorship program |
| Love offering collected in envelopes marked for the pastor | No; also W-2 income to the pastor | Do not list on contribution statements |
| Gift "for hurricane relief" with no named recipient | Yes | Standard acknowledgment; the charity picks who is helped |
The pattern: a donor may suggest; the organization must be free to decide. Put that sentence in your mission-trip policy, your benevolence policy and your scholarship criteria, print it on the giving form, and most designated gifts become ordinary deductible contributions with a preference noted.
Mission-trip support acknowledgment
For a gift to the team fund. The optional paragraph records that the donor hoped to help a particular participant and states, in plain words, that the fund is pooled and under the organization's full control and discretion — the fact that makes the deduction hold. Carries the required no-goods statement, EIN and 501(c)(3) line.
[Organization name] [Mailing address] EIN [00-0000000] [Date] Dear [Donor name], Thank you for your gift of $[amount], received on [date], to [Organization name]'s [2026 Guatemala Mission Team] Fund. [Optional, only if the donor expressed a preference:] You mentioned that you hope your gift helps [team member's first name] take part. We are glad to know that. As our mission-trip policy explains, every gift to the team fund is pooled and under the full control and discretion of [Organization name]; the missions committee decides how the fund is used among the whole team and for the trip's shared costs, and your gift is not conditioned on any one participant. The fund covers [airfare, lodging, materials for the school build, and team insurance] for the [12] members serving in [place] from [dates]. We will send you a short report when the team returns. No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution. [Organization name] is a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (EIN [00-0000000]). Please keep this letter with your tax records. With gratitude, [Signer name] [Title]
No-receipt letter for a gift earmarked for a person
When the money was genuinely designated for a named individual and you passed it along. Thanks the donor, confirms what you did with the money, explains without jargon why no tax receipt is being issued, and points them to the controlled fund for next time. Honest letters like this protect the donor from a failed deduction and protect you from issuing a receipt you know to be wrong.
[Organization name] [Mailing address] [Date] Dear [Donor name], Thank you for the $[amount] you sent on [date] [for the Johnson family's medical bills / to cover Sarah's mission trip costs]. [Organization name] has forwarded the full amount as you asked [and we know it will make a real difference]. We want to be straightforward about the tax side. Because this gift was designated for a specific person, IRS rules treat it as your personal gift to [him/her/them] rather than a charitable contribution to [Organization name] (Rev. Rul. 62-113; IRS Publication 526). For that reason we are not issuing a charitable contribution receipt, and this letter should not be used as one. We handled your money exactly as you directed, and we are glad to have been able to help. If in future you would like a gift to be tax-deductible, you can give to our [Benevolence Fund / Mission Team Fund] without naming a recipient. Our [benevolence committee / missions committee] decides how that fund is used, and you are always welcome to tell us about a need you have seen; we simply cannot promise in advance where the money will go. Gifts made that way are acknowledged with a full tax receipt. Thank you for your generosity and for trusting us to carry it. Sincerely, [Signer name] [Title] (This letter confirms the amount received and forwarded. It is not a receipt for a charitable contribution.)
Benevolence fund acknowledgment + giving-form wording
The receipt for a gift to a committee-controlled hardship fund, plus the paragraph for your envelope, website or giving form that tells donors in advance that suggestions are welcome and designations for individuals are not accepted — so the control exists before the check arrives, not after.
[Organization name] [Mailing address] EIN [00-0000000] [Date] Dear [Donor name], Thank you for your gift of $[amount] to the [Organization name] Benevolence Fund, received on [date]. The fund exists to help [members of our congregation and neighbors] facing [medical bills, housing emergencies, funeral costs and other hardship]. Requests are reviewed by the Benevolence Committee under our written benevolence policy, and the committee alone decides who receives assistance and how much. [Optional: Over the past year the fund helped [14] households with [rent, utilities and prescriptions].] No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution. [Organization name] is a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (EIN [00-0000000]). Please keep this letter with your tax records. Gratefully, [Signer name] [Title] ---------------------------------------------------------------- Wording for the giving form, envelope or website (keeps gifts deductible): Gifts to the Benevolence Fund are under the full control and discretion of [Organization name] and are distributed by its Benevolence Committee according to the benevolence policy. You may tell us about a need you are aware of, and the committee will consider it, but gifts cannot be designated for a particular individual or family. A gift that is conditioned on a particular recipient cannot be accepted as a charitable contribution and will be returned or, with your permission, forwarded to the person as your personal gift without a tax receipt.
Scholarship fund acknowledgment
For a gift to a named or memorial scholarship fund. States the award, the criteria, that the committee selects from an open pool, that donors and their relatives are ineligible and do not take part in selection, and that awards go to the school — the facts that distinguish a scholarship gift from paying a particular student's tuition.
[Organization name] [Mailing address] EIN [00-0000000] [Date] Dear [Donor name], Thank you for your gift of $[amount], received on [date], to the [Maria Alvarez Memorial] Scholarship Fund at [Organization name]. The fund awards [one $1,000 scholarship each spring] to [a graduating senior from the district who plans to study nursing]. Recipients are chosen by [Organization name]'s scholarship committee using the written criteria adopted by the board — [financial need, academic record and a short essay] — from an open pool of applicants. Neither donors to the fund nor their relatives take part in selection or are eligible for awards. Awards are paid directly to the recipient's school. [Optional: This year's recipient was [first name], who will begin at [school] in the fall. We will let you know how [he/she] is doing.] No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution. [Organization name] is a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (EIN [00-0000000]). Please keep this letter with your tax records. With appreciation, [Signer name] [Title]
Earmarked gifts in the generator
Paste your gift list with the memo or notes column included. When a Notes cell reads like a designation for a named person — for Sarah's trip, Johnson family medical, tuition for Marcus — the generator still writes the letter but attaches a warning for the treasurer citing Rev. Rul. 62-113, so you can decide row by row whether your organization controlled the money (send the letter) or merely passed it through (send the no-receipt letter instead). Notes that name a fund, a place or a program (Guatemala team fund, benevolence, scholarship fund) are not flagged.
Designated gift questions
A donor wrote "for Sarah's mission trip" on the check. Can we receipt it?
It depends on who controls the money, not on what the memo line says. If your mission-trip policy pools every gift in a team fund that your missions committee controls, participants cannot claim 'their' donors' money, and a donor's name on the memo line is treated as a non-binding preference, the gift is to the church and you can acknowledge it (Rev. Rul. 62-113 allows a deduction where the organization has full control and discretion). If instead each participant has an account, gifts marked for Sarah can only ever be spent on Sarah, and Sarah must raise her own costs or stay home, the church is a conduit and the gift is a personal gift to Sarah — no receipt. Write the policy down, print it on the support-raising letter, and make the first version true.
Can parents deduct what they pay for their own child's mission trip?
Generally no. In Davis v. United States (1990) the Supreme Court held that parents' payments to support their sons as full-time missionaries were not contributions 'for the use of' the church, and Rev. Rul. 62-113 says a gift distinctly marked for the donor's own child is a gift to the child. Running the money through the church account does not change that if the church must spend it on that child. If parents give to the pooled team fund without earmarking and the church genuinely controls it, the gift stands on its own — but a parent whose gift exactly matches their child's trip cost, made the week the deposit was due, should expect that the IRS would look at substance over form.
A team member paid their own trip costs through our account. Is that deductible for them?
Possibly, as the volunteer's own unreimbursed expenses rather than as a gift. Publication 526 lets a volunteer deduct travel costs while performing services for a charity if there is no significant element of personal pleasure, recreation or vacation in the trip — a week building a school counts; a week of sightseeing with one afternoon of service does not. Your letter should describe the services the volunteer performed and the dates, say whether you provided any goods or services (meals and lodging you arranged are part of the trip, not a benefit to disclose), and not state a dollar value. The volunteer's own receipts prove the amount. See the volunteer expense page for that letter.
What about a love offering for the pastor collected on a Sunday?
If members put money in an envelope marked for the pastor and the church simply hands it over, the gifts are earmarked for an individual and are not deductible, and the church should not list them on contribution statements. If members give to the church's general or benevolence fund and the board, in its own discretion, decides to pay the pastor a gift from church funds, the members' gifts are ordinary deductible contributions. Either way, what the pastor receives for his or her services is compensation reportable on the W-2.
We set up a fund for a family whose house burned down. Can donors deduct their gifts?
Not if the fund exists only to help that family. A charity cannot be a conduit to a predetermined person, and gifts earmarked for a named family are personal gifts to that family — generous, tax-free to the recipients, but not charitable contributions. The deductible structure is a disaster-relief or benevolence fund that helps a class of people (members in crisis, families displaced by fires in the county) with recipients chosen by a committee under a written policy; the burned-out family can be the first case the committee considers. IRS Publication 3833 describes how charities may run disaster-relief programs, including needs-based criteria and the rule that relief cannot be limited to pre-selected individuals.
Is 'sponsor a child' deductible?
Generally yes when the organization selects the children, pools sponsorship money and controls how it is spent, so that the sponsor is supporting the program and receives letters and photos as a token of the relationship rather than directing money to a particular child. The acknowledgment should describe the gift as a contribution to the child-sponsorship program. If a program instead lets the sponsor pay a specific child's school fees directly, the earmarking analysis applies and the deduction is at risk.
Can a donor fund a scholarship and pick the student?
A donor can fund a scholarship, name it, and set objective criteria (field of study, school district, need). The donor cannot choose the recipient, and the donor's family should be ineligible. Paying a named student's tuition through a school or ministry is not a contribution (the tuition cases Tripp v. Commissioner and Thomason v. Commissioner), and a church or booster club that passes money to a named student's college is a conduit. The letter above states the committee-selection process so the donor's file shows your control.
A donor already got a receipt for an earmarked gift last year. What now?
Tell them. Send a short correction explaining that on review the gift was designated for a specific individual and so was not a charitable contribution, enclose a letter like the no-receipt template, and let them decide with their preparer whether to amend. Then fix the intake form so designations for individuals are refused or converted to non-binding preferences before the money is accepted. Issuing receipts you know to be wrong exposes the organization under IRC §6701 (aiding an understatement) and, for churches, invites a look at whether the organization is serving private rather than public interests.
The trip was cancelled, or the participant dropped out. Do we refund the donors?
If the gifts were real contributions to a fund you control, they are the organization's money, and refunding them undoes the deduction and suggests the donors were really paying for a person. Your mission-trip policy should say gifts are non-refundable and that unused team-fund money goes to the next trip or the missions budget; tell donors that in the acknowledgment or in the trip's giving page. A participant who paid their own costs is different: that was a payment, not a gift, and your refund policy for them can be whatever you choose.
Can our giving form still have a box that says 'in support of: ______'?
Yes, if the form also says, next to the box, that preferences are welcome but not binding and that all gifts to the team fund are under the organization's full control and discretion. Rev. Rul. 62-113 turns on who controls the money, not on whether a name was mentioned, so the preference box is fine when your policy and practice back it up: gifts pooled in one fund, shortfalls covered for any participant, surpluses retained. Drop the box only if, in practice, each participant's donations are tracked as their own account.
A family in our congregation set up a GoFundMe. Can we receipt the people who gave to it?
No. A personal GoFundMe for a family is not a charitable fundraiser; the money belongs to the organizer or beneficiary, and gifts to it are personal gifts to that family (generally tax-free to them under IRC §102 and not deductible for the givers). You were not the recipient, so you have nothing to receipt. If the church wants to help, it can give from its own benevolence fund after the committee reviews the need, and donors who give to that fund get a normal receipt. See our crowdfunding page for charity-run campaigns, where PayPal Giving Fund or the platform charity is the one issuing receipts.
We want to raise disaster relief money for one family. Does the 'charitable class' rule apply?
Yes. IRS Publication 3833 explains that a charity's relief must serve a charitable class — a group large or open-ended enough that helping it benefits the community rather than specific people. A fund created for one pre-identified family does not meet that test, so gifts to it are earmarked and non-deductible even when a charity collects them. The workable approach: a standing or disaster-relief fund for anyone in the congregation or community who meets written hardship criteria, with the committee deciding who is helped. That family can be the first recipient; the fund simply must not be closed to others.
General information based on Internal Revenue Code §§170(c) and 170(f)(8), Rev. Rul. 62-113, Davis v. United States, 495 U.S. 472 (1990), Tripp v. Commissioner and Thomason v. Commissioner, and IRS Publications 526, 1771 and 3833. Not legal, tax or accounting advice.